I picked arguably the top five Rangers pitchers ever and used FanGraphs FIP to look at their career...

I picked arguably the top five Rangers pitchers ever and used FanGraphs FIP to look at their career WAR with the Rangers. This is organized by best to worst season. Larger version here. Career path here.

Nolan Ryan was nuts. An 8.3 WAR (at 42 years old!) has to be the best season from a Rangers pitcher ever.

about 3 years ago philkid3 6 comments 1 recs |

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Ryan was second in FIP that year, in fact.

Barely behind Bret Saberhagen, and the two of them were way ahead of everyone else in baseball.

And That Happened: Sports with a Hint of Sarcasm

by philkid3 on Apr 7, 2009 6:03 AM CDT reply actions

Truly impressive.

That man is seriously a freak of nature.

by jwiscarson on Apr 7, 2009 11:00 AM CDT up reply actions

I'm a big fan of this type of analysis

When we were having the debate about who the best pitcher in Ranger history was, it hard for the very reason that you plot here. Longevity and peak are both important, but somewhat orthogonal variables. Unless you have a way of assigning value to each of these components, you’re better off displaying it like this.

For peak, you have Nolan and Fergie; for longevity, Hough and Rogers. I think this graph demonstrates how these guys values were different.

by JBImaknee on Apr 7, 2009 12:03 PM CDT reply actions

How would you order them after looking at it?

And That Happened: Sports with a Hint of Sarcasm

by philkid3 on Apr 7, 2009 1:41 PM CDT up reply actions

Its tough

From the graph, I think the following inequalities are clear (though maybe some would quibble):

Nolan>Fergie
Hough>Rogers

Neither is a blowout – but seeing Rogers curve lie entirely beneath Hough demonstrates that he was the more valuable pitcher. Fergie’s second year was more valuable than Nolan’s, but the most valuable years Nolan holds the advantage.

I guess it comes down to whether you believe the value associated with WAR scales linearly. In other words, is the difference between an 8.3 and 7.3 guy the same as the difference between a 2.3 and 1.3 guy?

Ultimately, I think that given the Rangers utter inability to find decent pitching, the fact that Hough gave the team 4 more seasons with over 2 WAR makes up for the 4 WAR difference in their best season.

1. Hough
2. Nolan
3. Fergie
4. Rogers
5. Brown

by JBImaknee on Apr 7, 2009 5:15 PM CDT up reply actions